Prior art connectors and fittings have been utilized for joining to tubular conduits for connecting the tubular conduits together or to other members. The tubular conduits have included piping, ducting, electrical conduits and the like, which have been used for both fluid flow conduits and to provide protective enclosures for electrical power and telecommunication cables. For fluid flow conduits, they are frequently buried underground, and have limited access and mobility during repairing. In the prior art, fittings have been typically joined to the terminal ends of tubular conduits by either adhesive bonding, swedging or securing two mating threads together. A swedged fitting requires two swedging members between which a terminal end section of a tubular conduit is squeezed. One of the swedging members is placed on the interior of the tubular conduit which results in a restriction which is smaller than the interior diameter of the tubular conduit, rather than providing a full bore opening. A threaded connection requires the threading of either an interior surface or an exterior surface of the tubular conduit, which is time consuming and labor intensive. For the buried conduits, threading the conduits becomes very difficult, sometimes, is not feasible at all.
Because of the poor accessibility and mobility of already installed conduits, a flexible fitting structure and operating mechanism are highly desirable for conduit repairing. Slidable fitting mechanism has been used in some commercial products, which has one tubular coupling member that can be slidably extended from the fitting to joint the conduit. However, these structures completely depend on adhesive bonding, therefore, have poor resistance to environmental temperature variations.
Therefore, there exists a need for an improved fitting structure, and a convenient method for connecting the conduits.